A group of senators is urging Major League Baseball to use the World Series as a chance to step up and change a fairly recognizable scene at baseball stadiums: a group of players in the dugout chomping on chew and spitting tobacco juice.

Not only is it unhealthy, the senators said, but it sends the wrong message to children who look up to the players.

"An expected 15 million viewers, including many children, will tune in to watch the first game of the series," Sen. Dick Durbin and other senators said in a letter to the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. "Unfortunately, as these young fans root for their favorite team and players, they also will watch their on-field heroes use smokeless tobacco products."

It's a scene that's caught often on TV, as a camera pansÂ the field during batting practice or the dugout during the game: Some players chew gum, others spit out sunflower seed shells, and others spit out tobacco juice. With the first game of the World Series set for Wednesday night, the senators are trying to use that national platform to urge players to opt for the sunflower seeds rather than the tobacco.

Sens. Durbin, Frank Lautenberg, Richard Blumenthal and Tom Harkin, who is the Senate Health Committee chairman, said the World Series is such a big stage that it would be a good opportunity to right a wrong as well as set a good example.

The senators cited the 2009 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which showed a 36% increase in use of smokeless tobacco products among boys in high school since 2003. The survey also showed that 15% of high school boys now use the products.

"When players use smokeless tobacco, they endanger not only their own health, but also the health of millions of children who follow their example," they said in a letter.

Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, echoed that sentiment wholeheartedly.

â€śMajor League Baseball and the players union should follow the senatorsâ€™ leadership and get smokeless tobacco out of the game,â€ť Myers said in a press release. Â â€śThe calls for tobacco-free baseball have come from hundreds of diverse voices that have grown louder over the course of the 2011 season. Now it is time for baseball to act to protect the health of current players and millions of kids who look up to them.â€ť

The senators had earlier in the year petitioned MLB Commissioner Bud Selig to ban tobacco in the major leagues, as the minor leagues already have.

"It is time for the players to take the lead and support extending this policy throughout MLB," the senators wrote.

Selig has said that he intends to propose the ban as a part of the players' new contracts next year.

Good example of one of the many reasons people are protesting in every city in this country right now. Most of us US Citizens don't give a GD about this, yet these people that are supposed to be representing us are busy with crap like this... amazing. Keep pulling this crap and soon those protests will be riots, and they'll be right outside these senators homes.

Why don't these Senators stop worrying about the players personal freedoms and instead do something about the times that the games start at? The average child that they are supposedly trying to protect can't even watch these games on television because they will end too late. If they really cared about kids they would force the leagues to play weekend day games in the playoffs as well as starting the night games at 7pm. A whole generation of baseball fans have been lost because no east coast child can stay up late enough to watch these playoff games.

They dont want the kids to start the bad habit. These athletes get paid a lot of money. A LOT of kids look up to these guys! Whether they can watch the full game or not they are still setting a bad example! It needs to end!

Emily,
I understand your concern, but I don't feel like it is the Federal government's job to try and steer my kids in the "right" direction. If they were that concerned about my child's health, they would board up all fast-food. But again, it's my job to raise my kids, not theirs.

Once again the PC and nanny state crowds have run amok. Seriously, if you don't know this is bad for you by now no amount of legislation will stop you from doing yourself harm. It is a enormous waste of time for any politician to spend even a second on something as dimwitted as this. There are bigger fish to fry here. Unemployment is at an all time high, who the hell cares if some baseball players take some chew? This smacks of trying to win party points in the upcoming election. Pathetic.

Anyone wonder why the Congressional approval rating hovers around 10-15%? Let's just outlaw any potentially harmful substance because obviously we can't be trusted without their enlightened insight on how to live our lives. And while we're at it, let's just outlaw free will!

For the love god!! Stay out of our lives already. Congress needs to stay out of this. Partents, if you have a problem talk to your kids. Stop being part of the F'ing problem and part of the solution so our government won't feel the need to step in everytime a child does something wrong. You are ruining it for everyone else who is "RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN ACTIONS"

I'd rather watch a man with a job and paying taxes chewing tobaco than paying a group of senators to focus on peoples legal personal habits while our unemployment rate is @ 9.1% and those senators are paid with tax payer dollars which pay for their , sometimes illegal and ugly, personal habits.

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